The economy is going well and this is also being felt in the arts. Not that more art is being bought exactly, but more that in a social sense, art is forced to change with the society it is a part of . In a new economy, art cannot lag behind complacently. Many artists are expressing this trend towards social status by going after popular positions like video producer, real estate agent, account manager, anchorman etc. These might be sidelines, but they are often adopted out of desperate need. Mike Smith plays with the morality of the new, contemporary artist. Having once been involved with the New York underground avant-garde movement in the seventies, living and working in huge lofts in SoHo, Mike has since used the alter ego "Mike". Mike lets "Mike" do the dirty work of criticizing his own social world and expose the chasms in it with a sort of intrinsic trompe l'œil. 'Open House Reel' is amazingly composed as a by-product of an installation and shows "Mike", the fictitious video artist, trying to sell his SoHo loft with a promotape, now that the market is offering high prices for such places. In five sections, "Mike" outlines not just the benefits of the space, but also the inventive and artistic way he has used it. Despite "Mike's" deadpan presentation style, it is completely suffused with a biting satirical tone. Still, the detachment is not entirely convincing and you break out in a cold sweat when you realize that the ironically intended jokes are actually damning sketches of a world that seems to quietly erode under the onslaught of e-commerce and fancy design. In spite of this hyper-real oppression, this work, with its many-layered approach and complexity, shows that single channel video is still a viable medium .
– Willem van Weelden |
Michael Smith, 1951, Chicago (USA)
Joshua White, 1942, New York (USA)
Wonen en werken in New York (USA)
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